Neurological relativity

Last night before drifting off to sleep I grabbed a book of the nightstand, and opened it up to the a random page. This is something I do when fairly tired, and not wanting to get too involved in a book I'm reading for the first time. I had been missing one of my favorite authors yesterday, so I grabbed on of his works. It was Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson. Oddly enough I opened it to page 210...

"Each of us is trapped in the reality-tunnel (assumption-consumption) his or her brain has manufactured. We do not "see" it or "sense" it as a model our brain has created. We automatically, unconsciously, mechanically "see" and "sense" it out there, apart from us, and we consider it "objective." When we meet somebody whose separate tunnel-reality is obviously far different from ours, we are a bit frightened and always disoriented. We tend to think they are mad, or that they are crooks trying to con us in some way, or that they are hoaxsters playing a joke.

Yet it is neurologically obvious that no two brains have the same genetically-programmed hard wiring, the same imprints, the same conditioning, the same learning experiences. We are all living in separate realities. The is why communication fails so often, and misunderstandings and resentments are so common. I say "meow" and you say "bow-wow", and each of us is convinced the other is a bit dumb."

What say you A|N members? Does this help to make the case that there must be a level of openness and an honest attempt to meet on our common ground as equals? I for one am not here to find a leader, or to be a leader. My purpose here is to share knowledge, gain knowledge, and hopefully assist others in making the most out of their reality. From time to time I will make a flippant joke about religion, but I'm not one to go so far as to say it is like a disease that must be eliminated... time will make that determination.

So does neurological relativity sound reasonable, or is it some hippie pipe-dream?

Replies to This Discussion

there appears to me to be shade of gray everywhere, and while I understand your aversion to solipsism, I must also ask what is it that transcends "mundane" subjective ego and ascends to objective realism?

maybe I'm just the thorn in the paw, but I'm fairly entrenched in believing nothing... so selling me on anything "concrete" is more like trying to sell an Eskimo ice. I'm not buying whatever you are selling, but you are free to peddle it freely as you see fit. Just allow me the same courtesy.

I totally agree with you about letting other people be; what another person wants to believe is their business, I just don't have to consider their verity on things as absolute as math.

On how light travels, it travels in a particular way regardless of whether I'm right or Michio Kaku is right or Einstein was right, light travels a particular way; we don't know exactly how but we have a fairly good idea, to assume that all opinions as to how light travels are equally viable is not practical or sensible. Even you must agree that waves, photos, or wavicles are far more reasonable an explanation than faeries.

That bacteria, viruses, and parasites are far more reasonable explanations of illness that bad thoughts or witchcraft.

That while the depth our knowledge of HIV is still fairly shallow, beating children and having sex with virgins are not a cure for it.

"On how light travels, it travels in a particular way regardless of whether I'm right or Michio Kaku is right or Einstein was right, light travels a particular way; we don't know exactly how but we have a fairly good idea, to assume that all opinions as to how light travels are equally viable is not practical or sensible. Even you must agree that waves, photos, or wavicles are far more reasonable an explanation than faeries."

The point I make is exactly this... linguistically there is very little difference between the word "waves" or "faeries". There is a word which corresponds to a definition, assuming that our mental dictionaries do not contradict one another we have unified meaning. Waves and particles are the best model we have to describe the current understanding we have of how light travels. If another word is created that somehow has a more expansive definition, then light will be described as having traveled in that way all along. Do not mistake what you think you know of the universe for the universe itself. The map is not the territory. That being said there is much that is nonsense and lots that is wisdom, it is for the individual to weight the merits of each and decide for themselves what ideals make their own truth more meaningful.

We understand some things, other things will always require further eludication. Don't bind yourself to the same fate as those who "knew" that blood letting "worked". Be sure in your understanding, but don't grasp at the water thinking that you can catch it. It is tricky... and somehow it always gets away.

Concepts are built from words, consciousness is built of something much different. There are things we are limited from adequately putting into the proper language, that is different than utilizing words to reorder logic. I hope that my language never attempts to reorder logic, perhaps on occasion a bend? :)

I believe I understand now. I'm sorry, I totally misread the intention of your last post. Thanks for clarifying. I agree with you about religious speakers and how they add a level of "entertainment" to their message. Just like the majesty of old church buildings. They are meant to inspire awe and amazement, and they deliver too. But the totality of their rhetoric ends up being less about what they are saying and more importantly "how" they say it, or in other words a manipulation game.

I am not too fond of cultural relativity, moral relativity and I'm not convinced as to neurological relativity either. When we say that all things are relative and have equal validity, we must then ask ourselves if there is such a thing as good or evil and if so, it is that too just relative? If one says "of course!", then we must ask ourselves the question, is a pedophile's "reality" a valid one for him? Was Hitler's? I think that we are all born with a moral code that enabled us to survive. For example, there was a culture that routinely loved-up it's children until about 2 years of age, then they did very cruel things to those children...throwing them in the air and not catching them, pushing them into fires etc. Culturally, it was seen as training children to mistrust the world and others and those children passed that along. That culture eventually died out. Some people's "reality" can inflict severe suffering on others, but if we adopt the value that everyone's reality is valid to them, then they can neither be right or wrong. There was the old philosophical school that said "There Are No Absolute Truths" which, of course, was a contradiction. There are absolute truths. And I don't think we all have separate realities either. I think we share very common consciousness'..only the identity differs. For example, you can have two separate identities sharing the same consciousness (split personalities and fugue states). Twins have the same genetic brain but develop different identities which may be a part of consciousness but not the whole story. Cats think like cats, humans think like humans and bugs think like bugs. We share more than we think and is one of the reasons profiling by police agents is so successful. I hope this makes some sense!

First off, thanks for your reply. There are a few things which I tend to disagree with though. Morals are in my opinion a separate subject from discussing the context of "reality". Morals differ from country to country, state to state, and is influenced by the religion of the area as well as historical constants. Anyone's reality is valid. Hitler would not have been able to convince a whole country to eliminate another race unless their was some underlying racism that could be easily manipulated. Hitler was a product of his experiences, and those experiences produced morally objectionable results. He was responsible for it all in so far as his actions were what compelled the atrocities of the Nazi regime to occur, but he did not have any control over the factors that crafted him into the person he eventually became.

Just because one states that our realities are separate and unique, does not excuse a people from acting outside of their societies morals. It also doesn't mean that we can blame everything on our "upbringing", although its funny how we excuse some behaviors that are inflicted upon us when we are too young to know better while other circumstances are blamed solely on the heads of those ill-formed minds. If someone was raped or beaten and it affects them negatively their whole life, they are victims, but for people who are emotionally damaged or who have been through wars and witnessed terrible acts... they are supposed to somehow be able to "get over it" much easier.

Also, I'm not saying that there exists separate and equal "realities". More to the point I am saying that we each construct, using our conscious and unconscious minds, a
map" of our world using our language, symbology, and societal hierarchy... and those things are very unique to each individual.

Split personalities appears to me to be a product of a conflicted consciousness. Some minds find it easier to do what polytheistic religions accomplished in earlier history. It dissects the totality of the world into concepts, and distributes these conceptualized behaviors amongst several figureheads. However, they are all a product of the same consciousness... they are not separate "people".

Profiling by police agents is just a neurological grid. Finding similarities amongst those who have failed to "get away with it". That being said, criminal justice studies only train officers how to catch the dumb crooks who use the same flawed thinking. That is why the truly clever never get caught. :)

Hopefully everything I responded with makes sense as well, but if not I'll be more than happy to further explain anything at all. Thanks again!